66 July/August 2019 _ PopularMechanics.com
COURTESYNASA/JPL-CALTECH^(ATHLETE);^LOCKHEEDMARTIN^(LUNARLANDER);^ HONEYBEE^ ROBOTICS^(TRIDENT)wind, rivers or plate tectonics, the surface of
the moon has likely not changed much since
its origin, offering physical evidence to what
Earth may have been like during its infancy.
Efforts to dig out creation secrets would add
the benefit of astronaut training.
“It’s been almost 50 years since [humans]
have explored the surface of another plane-
tary body,” says Hoffman. “We have to build
up that expertise again, and there’s a lot we
can learn about exploration in a spacesuit on
the moon that we can directly transfer to the
exploration of Mars.”
Perhaps the most intriguing piece of the
near-term Gateway plan is its connection to
what is thought to be large deposits of water
ice on the South Pole of the moon. Though no
g round sampling ha s been done to determine
its physical state or distribution, such depos-
its could become the source of fuel for future
missions to Mars and beyond. Using space
resources to create products such as fuel for
human exploration is a process known as in-
situ resource utilization, or ISRU. It’s a big
part of the reason that when Pence directed
NASA to put American boots on the moon by
2024, he also promised, “they will take their
first steps on the moon’s South Pole.”
“The lunar South Pole is an area of great
interest and it’s not something you can go to
very easily directly from Earth,” says Fuller,
noting Apollo’s trajectory didn’t give its
lander access to the region. “Gateway pro-
vides us an opportunity to go to any location
on the moon.”
What happens once we get to the lunar
South Pole is the subject of even more specu-
lation than Gateway itself. Converting water
ice—if indeed abundant reserves are there
in extractable form—into rocket propellant
will require enormous amounts of energy, in
most scenarios imported from Earth at tre-
mendous cost.
“You have to melt the ice, purify the
water, filter it out, because you can’t put
dirty water into an electrolyzer unit, elec-
trolyze it, take the hydrogen and oxygen
and liquefy it, then load it into a rocket and
launch it off the surface of the moon to get
it to the depot,” says Hoffman. “Developing
a real sustainable mining operation in per-
manently shadowed craters in polar regions
of the moon is a very big deal. The surface
temperature within those craters is about
40°Kelvin (minus 388°Fahrenheit). A lot
of the materials we normally use don’t even
function at those temperatures.”THE NAYSAYERS
FOR NASA AND many in the space com-
munity, Gateway is a bold and exhilarating
endeavor charged with enormous possibil-
ities. To a chorus of detractors, however, it
sounds like a government boondoggle.
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin called
Gateway “absurd.” Former NASA Admin-
istrator Mike Griffin labeled it “stupid
architecture.” Hoffman calls it “premature,”
saying “its value becomes apparent only if
you get to the point of operating sufficiently
frequent f lights to and from the surface
of the moon with a reusable descent-and-
ascent vehicle.” In other words, why build
a gas station before you’ve even got a car in
the driveway?
“If we really want to get to Mars by way
of the moon (a very logical and beneficial
approach, in my mind), the Gateway is a huge
distraction,” wrote Scott Parazynski, M.D.,
founder of Fluidity Technologies, veteran
of five Space Shuttle missions, and author
of The Sky Below, in an email to Popular
Mechanics. “Not only will construction of
the Gateway station strip vast and critical
resources, resulting in basically an ‘ISS 2,’
it will divert attention and precious time in
developing a stepping-stone lunar outpost.”
For the time being, NASA is operating as
if it can have it all—Gateway, a 2024 lunar
landing, and Mars—on a budget that’s about
0.4 percent of federal spending in fiscal year
2020, compared to its peak of 4.5 percent in
the mid-1960s. The agency likely has more
on its plate than it has funds to support.
But there’s an undeniable lift in the step of
everyone at NASA these days. A Gateway-
assisted moon landing provides a goal
many have yearned for since the last Apollo
flight in 1972.
“When we go to Mars, we’re going to be
there for at least two years,” NASA Admin-
istrator Jim Bridenstine testified before the
House Committee on Science, Space and
Technology in April. “So, we need to learn
how to live and work in another world. The
moon is the best place to prove those capa-
bilities and technologies. The sooner we can
achieve that objective, the sooner we can
move on to Mars, and that’s ultimately the
objective here.”
NASA has emphatically established its
course. What remains to be seen is if it can
maintain the trajectory needed to get where
it believes it can go.In 2015, University
of Oxford physicist
David Robert Grimes,
Ph.D., developed a
mathematical model
determining that
if the U.S. moon
landings were faked
by the government,
an estimated 411,000
people would have
been in on the hoax
and at least one
person would have
leaked the conspiracy
within 3 years and 8
months.
Apollo engineering
influenced a lot of
technologies and
products, such as:
▶ freeze-dried
backpacking meals
▶ dustbuster cordless
vacuums
▶ Nike Air running
shoes
▶ anti-fog ski goggles
▶ studless winter
tires
The first supper on
the moon was the
Last Supper. Shortly
before stepping
on the moon, Buzz
Aldrin took the rite of
Christian communion,
consuming the
sacraments of wine
and bread that he
brought on board.
Eagle Scout Neil
Armstrong earned 26
merit badges (21 are
required) but not the
Space Exploration
merit badge. It wasn’t
created until 1965.
An unbuilt vintage
1969 1/48 scale
plastic model of the
lunar module can be
bought on eBay for
about $50.
The Saturn V rocket
that launched Apollo
11 burned through
203,400 gallons of
kerosene fuel and
another 318,000
gallons of liquid
oxygen to lift the
spacecraft just 38
miles into the sky.9 →10 →11 →12 →13 →14 →20 FACTS
YOU DIDN’T
KNOW ABOUT
APOLLO 11